Sunday, October 12, 2014

Warsaw '44: Testimony of Matthias Schenk

“We blew up the doors, I think of a school.
Children were standing in the hall and on the stairs. Lots of children.
All with their small hands up. We looked at them for a few moments
until Dirlewanger ran in. He ordered to kill them all. They shot them
and then they were walking over their bodies and breaking their little
heads with butt ends. Blood streamed down the stairs. There is a
memorial plaque in that place stating that 350 children were killed. I
think there were many more, maybe 500."

“Or that Polish woman" (Schenk doesn't
remember which action it was). "Every time, when we stormed the cellars
and women were inside the Dirlewanger soldiers raped them. Many times a
group raped the same woman, quickly, still holding weapons in their
hands. Then after one of the fights, I was standing shaking by the wall
and couldn't calm my nerves. Dirlewanger soldiers burst in. One of them
took a woman. She was pretty. She wasn't screaming. Then he was raping
her, pushing her head strongly against the table, holding a bayonet in
the other hand. First he cut open her blouse. Then one cut from stomach
to throat. Blood gushed. Do you know, how fast blood congeals in
August?"

“There is also that small child in
Dirlewanger’s hands. He took it from a woman who was standing in the
crowd in the street. He lifted the child high and then threw it into the
fire. Then he shot the mother."

“Or that little girl who unexpectedly came
out of the cellar. She was thin and short, something about 12 years old.
Torn clothes, disheveled hair. On one side we, on the other Poles. She
was standing by the wall not knowing where to run. She raised her hands,
and said Nicht Partizan. I waved with my hand that she
shouldn't be afraid and should come closer. She was walking with her
little hands up. She was squeezing something in one of her hands. She
was very close when I heard a shot. Her head bounced. A piece of bread
fell out from her hand. In the evening the platoon leader, he was from
Berlin, came up to me and said proudly: ‘It was a master shot. Wasn’t
it?’ He smiled proudly."